Kuala Lumpur offers to send 14 RI migrants to 3rd country

Kuala Lumpur offers to send 14 RI migrants to 3rd country

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Malaysia is willing to arrange for the
passage to a third country for 14 Indonesian immigrants holed up
in a U.N. refugee agency if they make a request for it, the
national Bernama news agency reported yesterday.

It quoted Deputy Home Minister Mohammed Tajol Rosli Ghazali,
who told reporters in northern Ipoh town that the group has not
contacted him so far.

The Indonesians crashed a lorry through the gate of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) compound near the center
of Kuala Lumpur on Monday.

They have said they are seeking political asylum and are
refugees from Aceh province on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where
a separatist revolt peaked in the early 1990s.

"The UNHCR has requested to see me but I have asked them to
write a letter instead stating what they want, and so far I have
not received the letter from them," the Malaysian minister was
quoted as saying.

Officials at the UNHCR and a spokesman for an Acehnese group
could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

Malaysia has agreed to grant the UNHCR time to determine if
the Indonesians are political refugees. But it has said it
considers the Indonesians illegal immigrants who were to be
deported.

Malaysia has in the past refused to grant Acehnese immigrants
political asylum but has quietly given some of them residency
status, human rights advocates said. Kuala Lumpur deported more
than 500 Acehnese last week.

Authorities said eight immigrants and a policeman died during
the deportation exercise.

Tajol Rosli said the government had sent back 27,500 illegal
Indonesian immigrants in the first quarter of this year compared
with 38,500 for the whole of last year.

"If carried out consistently, the government is confident that
by the end of the year 100,000 Indonesian illegal immigrants
would have been repatriated," he said.

Asia's financial crisis has thrown the spotlight on illegal
immigrants, as countries struggle with rising unemployment among
their own population. During the boom years, many rapidly
developing economies imported labor from their neighbors.